Archive for the ‘Water Ressources’ tag

March 22nd was “World Water Day“. This day gave reason for National Geographic to devote a full issue to the topic of Water. Even more, they let you explore this issue online, for free, and with a few extras such as interactive maps and background stories. It really is a nicely done interactive version, taking advantage of browsing, searching, video and audio. The only unfortunate thing is that it is based on flash.

I have a draft of a blog post on water outside earth in the works since quite some time now. Various information has been added, whenever I read something about water on the moon or on mars, which are the two places where it has been found, I think. I am not sure exactly where I am going with this. However, I noticed over the last half year or so an increased rate of published news on this topic. So at least this is a start to reflect on what is going on.

I am not sure how this fits into the big picture, or why we do care.
Here is Peter Gelick’s opinion why we care:

Why do we care? Obviously, this water isn’t going to help solve any of our water problems here on earth. But if we do, as a species, move out into space, water is the single most important resource we can find. It is too heavy to move water from the surface of the Earth into space, but if we can find it out there, it can be used for drinking water, to make oxygen for breathing, hydrogen for rocket fuel, and to produce food.

It seems likely that if there’s water in space, this water could be or could have been used by life:

But most noteworthy might be the NASA chief’s optimism for detecting extraterrestrial life. “I would be very surprised if we didn’t find life elsewhere, and frankly I expect to live to see it,” Griffin said. “I would be surprised to find that life never originated on Mars, and I wouldn’t be terribly surprised to find dormant or quiescent life underground,” he added.